[That's more in-line with what Myr had expected to hear, from Everett's level of dismay about his spiritual ancestor. But because it is, he's prompted to another question:] Did he love them as much as you do?
[It did not do to be over-certain about this. He's learned a great deal since coming to Aefenglom about checking his own assumptions, his own need to tidy people into boxes.
Sherwood, no less than Everett, couldn't be enclosed so simply, it sounds.]
I don't... believe that he loved anything or anybody. I think he saw most actions and most people as curiosities. He perfected a magic that turned souls, quite literally, into objects. Incarnate, he called them.
[he sighs again, feeling a deep well of pity and the name bubbles up again.]
Maker and Lady, [Myr breathes, involuntarily. He leans back in his chair, shuddering as if someone's walked over his grave; his fur's all on end with the heart-chilling horror of such a thing.
It isn't a magic wholly unknown on Thedas. There were rumors...
Faintly,]
His own wife? [...He recognizes the name.] You--you mistook me for her once, didn't you? Back during the mist...
That I had... she's also a reverent figure to my people. It's a common decoration to dye black a skull of a deer or elk, decorate it in white carnation and golden twine and stars. An Adelheid's ward, like the one I keep above the door out front.
[it's rather soured, now, that gesture he made to remember her. His fondness, what he always thought was some part of Sherwood still in him, drawing him to her visage and making him fascinated with her as more than just any figure of lore... It felt disingenuous now. Like he'd been tricked him believing there was some special connection he had to her, when there was only betrayal]
Her legacy was of self sacrifice, as she was who slayed Enki, ended her reign over the Unquestioned. I did not realize Sherwood's part... and that he could have saved her, but did instead refuse.
[Even without knowing the whole story--of Everett's upbringing or of Sherwood and Adelheid--Myr can grasp at the edges of how the other Faun is feeling. To have learned such a thing about the previous bearer of one's soul and how he'd acted against someone reverenced, someone Everett held in obvious high regard... As if Myr had woken up to find he was somehow, some way a reincarnation of Maferath.
Awful to contemplate.]
How did it come to that, between them? [A pause.] And why--how is it you learned all this, counter to what you knew growing up with the Springtide?
Ah, well... some time ago, when the objects from home came through the mirrors. A book appeared through mine, a collection of historical notes written by Sherwood himself. I was the third to read it, as Lord Viren discovered the bound volume and Sokie some stray pieces.
[which was irritating, but also... he'd not have had the courtesy to keep himself from reading such a thing, if the roles where switched. Stones, glass houses, something to that effect.
Everett, also, can't much stay mad at those two. They're gremlins just like he is.]
Sherwood wrote everything down. His journals are a cornerstone of Springtide culture, kept in utmost regard and under intense protection. They are too precious to allow any read should they not be a Druid. As his reincarnation, especially, I was forbidden ever be close to them. [so he promptly read it, like, five times and suffered. Everett sometimes suffers some real only really wants cookies if told not to touch the cookie jar impulses]
[Oof. Myr winces a little sympathetically; not that Viren and Sokie were the worst people to find such a thing and read it--in fact, they're probably the best of all the options--but being suddenly known to the people one loves the way Everett loves those two... That would not be the best feeling.
The very fact of those journals, and how they'd been kept from Everett... That's strange, though. That's very strange.]
So of course you did, once you could, [with gentle, wry humor. Yes, Myr knows you.] Why--why d'you think they kept them from you? They set him up in such high esteem but you make it sound as if they were ashamed of who he was.
[Or, more generously, trying to keep his reincarnation from the path he'd walk. Maker, what would expectations like that do to a child? To a man? Well, Myr, witness here your beloved and the result of that.]
Of course, I had. [he chuckles, albeit sadly to admit. He's predictable, in that way, too curious for his own good. All the warnings in the realm couldn't stop him from reading that tome, knowing finally what Sherwood was.
Even if the answer was unsatisfying, Everett wished to know that terrible truth, even if he'd prefer not to be living with it]
It was always said to be improper. That one shouldn't relive the past, in such a way. And... Vaughan always insisted I need be my own man.
A man he'd been fond of, but didn't want you to emulate? [Interesting. Very interesting. And--entirely academic, really, to the far more important subject of the weight of dread and guilt Everett's been carrying with him over the subject.
Myr considers approaches, gently pushes aside his own curiosity and the desire to dig deeper yet into the history of the Springtide. Ample time for that later--maybe even tonight, depending how the rest of the conversation goes and where they end up at the close of it.]
Are you afraid you've come to be too much like him anyway?
Afraid... well. [this would completely escape Myr, obviously, obviously it would. He could lie through omission with such ease!
It takes so much of his better judgement to share]
I know I'm much like him. As a matter of fact. [he doesn't like it, but it is. A fact with evidence.]
The Springtide can tell a reincarnation through matching handwriting. We're taught young to read and write so the comparison can be made. When young, it matches closest, since life experience has not had much influenced. [so, it follows, Everett's handwriting should be different now that he's older, if he is so different]
Mine is still the same. [he has the direct comparison to study and. Urg. It's bleak.]
[It is a fact that Myr's immediate impulse is to contest--because he's not Springtide and the matter of someone's handwriting seems petty and inconsequential. Everett is the sort of man who'd weep for a near-stranger's sorrow and keep a grieving mermaid company through the night. What did handwriting signify in the face of that?
And yet--and yet. Everett's also a man with a gift for stepping inside someone else's troubles and taking on the weight of them himself, however bizarre and removed they might seem from his own experiences. How could Myr do any less than follow his Bonded's example in this?
It seems such a small thing as to hardly matter, but it matters so much to Everett, and that's what's truly important.
(The emotions across their Bond roil and simmer as Myr works through this, settling on a quiet sort of worry.)]
Do you think that dooms you to committing all his same sins, dearheart?
I... do not know, my darling. I fear as much. Even if I am no druid, not in the sense Sherwood was... [the faun powers are more what Sherwood claimed of the druids, generating wealth and plenty without the drawing on of necromancy to do so, so that's safely different.
It's more his actions, the way he has always run from caring too deeply for others.]
I know of myself. I know the distance I keep with those I have loved. Others do not deserve to carry the burden of my inherent... selfishness. [he puts his hands to Myr's holding gently, if the bond belies the calmness.
He is lonely and filled with guilt for that, feels his desires too needy, too desperate, too childish. That is a weight not to be shared, like the soul supposedly held beneath his gloves.]
[Myr's tone rises on the word, not to incredulity but near enough. Near enough, as he takes Everett's hands in both his own and holds tight.]
You are anything but a selfish man, Everett Vaughan. Fearing to love too deeply, [he sees you there, in spirit, even if he can't in flesh,] is a world away from being the sort of man who'd take me, or Sokie, or Viren and sacrifice us for magic.
[If he's strident it's because he loves Everett so fiercely, so dearly, that he will fight on his behalf. Even if he's fighting Everett for Everett's own honor.
He lifts one of his Bonded's hands to his lips, pressing them against Everett's knuckles in his own gesture of knightly esteem. Quietly, then, and more gently,]
Instead you've given me back something I thought irreplaceable, believing in me when I couldn't.
[Fearing to love too deeply- the strikes through Everett, an arrow through the center of his chest and out through his back, pinning him to his chair in perfect posture. As a man so wrapped up in words, always having a talent for them and using them as his very livelihood, that simple statement is so true it wounds him.
And in part, it heals him.
Or it will, with some time, some thought, some care, and some consideration. Myr continues to speak and Everett is silent, breath held until tears rolls down his cheeks and pool in his glasses. When words can finally form, he says nothing of himself, because oh....
His darling Myr.]
Of course I believe in you. You are irreplaceable. I could tell... [Everett repeats, quieter and fonder so very, very assured]
[There is a risk, Myr knows, in speaking the truth so boldly about another person. Even when it's a kind truth, kindly meant, it can still hurt...
But it's that, or knowing each day Everett is torturing himself by comparison to a loveless monster. Myr's seldom had a choice in starker relief, and it strips the razor edge of guilt from knowing he's landed a blow. (Has made Everett cry, though he cannot see that, doesn't yet know it.) Oh, there is pain in him for his beloved's pain, and sorrow to have worsened it, but it's a healer's sorrow and not a soldier's, knowing mending could come of the wound.]
Flatterer, [he breathes through a smile that's nigh on tears itself, and:] Thank you, dearheart. For that, and for all you are and all you've shared with me.
[He believes in you, Everett, you see, and he is so very good at fervent, heartfelt belief.]
And, [because he is also very, very good at curiosity,] all you will yet.
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faithlikeaseed) wrote2019-08-01 12:00 am
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[It did not do to be over-certain about this. He's learned a great deal since coming to Aefenglom about checking his own assumptions, his own need to tidy people into boxes.
Sherwood, no less than Everett, couldn't be enclosed so simply, it sounds.]
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[he sighs again, feeling a deep well of pity and the name bubbles up again.]
Even his own wife, Adelheid.
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It isn't a magic wholly unknown on Thedas. There were rumors...
Faintly,]
His own wife? [...He recognizes the name.] You--you mistook me for her once, didn't you? Back during the mist...
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[it's rather soured, now, that gesture he made to remember her. His fondness, what he always thought was some part of Sherwood still in him, drawing him to her visage and making him fascinated with her as more than just any figure of lore... It felt disingenuous now. Like he'd been tricked him believing there was some special connection he had to her, when there was only betrayal]
Her legacy was of self sacrifice, as she was who slayed Enki, ended her reign over the Unquestioned. I did not realize Sherwood's part... and that he could have saved her, but did instead refuse.
no subject
Awful to contemplate.]
How did it come to that, between them? [A pause.] And why--how is it you learned all this, counter to what you knew growing up with the Springtide?
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[which was irritating, but also... he'd not have had the courtesy to keep himself from reading such a thing, if the roles where switched. Stones, glass houses, something to that effect.
Everett, also, can't much stay mad at those two. They're gremlins just like he is.]
Sherwood wrote everything down. His journals are a cornerstone of Springtide culture, kept in utmost regard and under intense protection. They are too precious to allow any read should they not be a Druid. As his reincarnation, especially, I was forbidden ever be close to them. [so he promptly read it, like, five times and suffered. Everett sometimes suffers some real only really wants cookies if told not to touch the cookie jar impulses]
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The very fact of those journals, and how they'd been kept from Everett... That's strange, though. That's very strange.]
So of course you did, once you could, [with gentle, wry humor. Yes, Myr knows you.] Why--why d'you think they kept them from you? They set him up in such high esteem but you make it sound as if they were ashamed of who he was.
[Or, more generously, trying to keep his reincarnation from the path he'd walk. Maker, what would expectations like that do to a child? To a man? Well, Myr, witness here your beloved and the result of that.]
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Even if the answer was unsatisfying, Everett wished to know that terrible truth, even if he'd prefer not to be living with it]
It was always said to be improper. That one shouldn't relive the past, in such a way. And... Vaughan always insisted I need be my own man.
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Myr considers approaches, gently pushes aside his own curiosity and the desire to dig deeper yet into the history of the Springtide. Ample time for that later--maybe even tonight, depending how the rest of the conversation goes and where they end up at the close of it.]
Are you afraid you've come to be too much like him anyway?
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It takes so much of his better judgement to share]
I know I'm much like him. As a matter of fact. [he doesn't like it, but it is. A fact with evidence.]
The Springtide can tell a reincarnation through matching handwriting. We're taught young to read and write so the comparison can be made. When young, it matches closest, since life experience has not had much influenced. [so, it follows, Everett's handwriting should be different now that he's older, if he is so different]
Mine is still the same. [he has the direct comparison to study and. Urg. It's bleak.]
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And yet--and yet. Everett's also a man with a gift for stepping inside someone else's troubles and taking on the weight of them himself, however bizarre and removed they might seem from his own experiences. How could Myr do any less than follow his Bonded's example in this?
It seems such a small thing as to hardly matter, but it matters so much to Everett, and that's what's truly important.
(The emotions across their Bond roil and simmer as Myr works through this, settling on a quiet sort of worry.)]
Do you think that dooms you to committing all his same sins, dearheart?
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It's more his actions, the way he has always run from caring too deeply for others.]
I know of myself. I know the distance I keep with those I have loved. Others do not deserve to carry the burden of my inherent... selfishness. [he puts his hands to Myr's holding gently, if the bond belies the calmness.
He is lonely and filled with guilt for that, feels his desires too needy, too desperate, too childish. That is a weight not to be shared, like the soul supposedly held beneath his gloves.]
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[Myr's tone rises on the word, not to incredulity but near enough. Near enough, as he takes Everett's hands in both his own and holds tight.]
You are anything but a selfish man, Everett Vaughan. Fearing to love too deeply, [he sees you there, in spirit, even if he can't in flesh,] is a world away from being the sort of man who'd take me, or Sokie, or Viren and sacrifice us for magic.
[If he's strident it's because he loves Everett so fiercely, so dearly, that he will fight on his behalf. Even if he's fighting Everett for Everett's own honor.
He lifts one of his Bonded's hands to his lips, pressing them against Everett's knuckles in his own gesture of knightly esteem. Quietly, then, and more gently,]
Instead you've given me back something I thought irreplaceable, believing in me when I couldn't.
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And in part, it heals him.
Or it will, with some time, some thought, some care, and some consideration. Myr continues to speak and Everett is silent, breath held until tears rolls down his cheeks and pool in his glasses. When words can finally form, he says nothing of himself, because oh....
His darling Myr.]
Of course I believe in you. You are irreplaceable. I could tell... [Everett repeats, quieter and fonder so very, very assured]
I could tell right away.
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But it's that, or knowing each day Everett is torturing himself by comparison to a loveless monster. Myr's seldom had a choice in starker relief, and it strips the razor edge of guilt from knowing he's landed a blow. (Has made Everett cry, though he cannot see that, doesn't yet know it.) Oh, there is pain in him for his beloved's pain, and sorrow to have worsened it, but it's a healer's sorrow and not a soldier's, knowing mending could come of the wound.]
Flatterer, [he breathes through a smile that's nigh on tears itself, and:] Thank you, dearheart. For that, and for all you are and all you've shared with me.
[He believes in you, Everett, you see, and he is so very good at fervent, heartfelt belief.]
And, [because he is also very, very good at curiosity,] all you will yet.